Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Alex McFarland: A ‘New Age’ Of Demonic Activity Or Nothing New Under The Sun?
Transcript
- 0:00Hey, friends. Special treat. We've got Alex McFarlane back with us. We're going to catch up with him from the airport in just a minute on World View Matters.
- 0:11Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events, defending biblical Christianity, no topic off limits.
- 0:24And now here's your host, David Fierazzo.
- 0:29All right, friends. Thank you so much for tuning in. And before we get to Alex, I want to just share some information that's on his website, because I really like this opening. It says America, we have a problem.
- 0:42We're witnessing a decline that goes beyond statistics. It is a significant cultural shift that requires action less than 31% of Americans have confidence or trust in the church.
- 0:56Almost 50% of pastors in the U.S. have considered quitting. Only 25% of Christian adults believe the Bible is the actual word of God, Christian adults, and one in six young adults in Gen Z, consider themselves to be LGBT.
- 1:18So Alex McFarlane.com is the website. Dr Alex McFarlane is a youth, religion and culture expert, the author of more than 20 books, including the assault on America, how to defend our nation before it's too late.
- 1:36And his latest book is 100 Bible questions and answers for families. Alex has heard live daily in the American Family Radio Network. He serves as director of World View for Charis Bible College in Woodland Park, Colorado, and co host the Truth and Liberty TV broadcast. Brother, it's so good to catch up with you. Thanks so much for your time today. Good to see you.
- 1:59Well, it's good to be with you, David. I sincerely appreciate you having me on. Yeah, and Alex just you're traveling. You're getting you're either going to an engagement or speaking or you're a busy man. You're in the airport. And we just really appreciate you just being able to work this out for us because you know, otherwise we would have missed you. But so thank you.
- 2:21Let's start with. Thank you.
- 2:23Well, you know, ideally you're in a wonderful studio. We have a studio back east and I'm in the Denver Airport out of the privilege of speaking like an hour ago to pastors for a turning point, USA, a Charlie Kirk, TV USA event.
- 2:39And so I was running to the airport and you guys graciously allowed me to be on even in the lobby of the Denver Airport.
- 2:48Well, you know what we can hear you? We can see you. It's a little dark, but we can still see you. But yeah, people just love to catch up with you and what we're going to talk about today.
- 2:59In fact, I was going to open with why does the world hate the Jews? Because that's an article you wrote. We're going to get to that. I love the way you answered that and laid that out in your article.
- 3:11But first, you've got a new web site, McFarland Farms dot com. Is that right?
- 3:19That's for a peanut butter. You know, the old thing you can take the boy off the farm, but you can't get the farm out of the boy.
- 3:26Yeah, Alex McFarland peanut butter, all the profits go to missions. And we've been making and selling peanut butter since 2009, although my grandmother rest her soul.
- 3:40I was going to join McFarland. She taught me how to make peanut butter when I was a kid because during the depression, you know, I grew up in my family for 68 years.
- 3:49We were in the egg business. We raised chickens there in North Carolina. And for 68 years, my grandfather, my dad and me, we sold egg to over a thousand customers.
- 4:01My grandmother taught me, she was very godly woman. She taught me how they, in the depression, they made their own mayonnaise, they made their own ketchup, they made their own peanut butter.
- 4:12And I asked her, I said, grandmother, how do you make peanut butter? And she said, we just chop up peanuts. And I'll never forget. I was about 13. She said, the good Lord just made it where if you chop long enough oil comes out.
- 4:24And so we decided we would make peanut butter and give it away to, you know, friends and neighbors at Christmas and everybody wanted some. So we started the company and yeah, McFarlandFarms.com, our peanut butter is all natural. And every 100% of the proceeds go to evangelism and world mission.
- 4:49Okay, this is not a trick question. And I'm not trying to put you on the spot. But crunchy or creamy?
- 4:55Oh, crunchy as the good Lord intended.
- 4:59All right. Thanks, Alex. So McFarlandFarms.com.
- 5:03All right. I love both two. And there's a, there's a dual pack. You can get creamy and crunchy on the website. So, but that's not why we brought you on.
- 5:12We want to get to anti-semitism, which is a huge problem in America said to say we knew it was over in the Middle East. We knew maybe it was on college campuses, but there's some confusion about anti-semitism, Zionism. But let's talk about just, we just recently celebrated Christmas.
- 5:32And I guess there was an AI Jesus going around, you know, with artificial intelligence. You can do all kinds of things now. And you were talking about that. Tell us a little bit about what that was about because I missed that.
- 5:47Yeah, well, you know, there's several apps that what many apps where people can interact with artificial intelligence. And in fact, you know, all of us probably have like if you call the one 800 number and a phone tree on a business says, you tell us in a few words what you're calling about.
- 6:05We've interacted with AI and there, there is a repository of responses that any AI information amalgamator can regurgitate out. But there have been a few people that have made like AI, Bible and Jesus.
- 6:24Now, it's kind of a technological curiosity. But the thing about it is when a lot of people, especially young people, they may not really know the true word of God. And when an AI algorithm regurgitate answers that very often are woke or PC, they may sound a little spiritual, but are not necessarily scripturally accurate.
- 6:51It moves from a technological curiosity to something overtly heretical. That's why we tell young people in our camps and our conferences, you know, look, technology is interesting, but don't be misled.
- 7:06Know the real Bible, the real word of God and Jesus, the real son of God, because we don't want people to be misled.
- 7:15So one of the scary questions is, could AI generate false gods that people will believe in and kind of like creating gods in our own image, right? Can AI can do that? Tell us about that.
- 7:31Well, you know, it's funny, there was a Dilbert comic strip, probably 10 years ago, that this Dilbert comic strip is said, God is not a part of our path, God is going to be a part of our future.
- 7:45Because when the internet becomes sentient and self-aware, it has all this knowledge and it will become God. There's a few interesting problems with that. For one, there's the assumption that all the banks of all the servers will graduate to the realm of omniscience and know everything.
- 8:07And while the internet does store, you know, I've heard there's like 125 terabyte of information for every man, woman and boy and girl on the planet. There's a lot of information, but the internet will never achieve omniscience.
- 8:22And so the Dilbert ship is wrong, God is a part of our path, God created it. But another part of the reason that AI, however impressive it may appear to be, it will never achieve deity is because by definition God is eternal.
- 8:40There was never a time when God didn't exist, whereas there definitely was a time when the internet didn't exist. And I remember those days fondly, but there was a time when computers didn't exist.
- 8:55So something that is uncreated and eternal, God could never be mistaken for something that is finite, created and limited, which is all man made devices.
- 9:08So I remember those times fondly as well when parents would say, go outside and play. And you say that to kids today and they got their gadgets and go, what? Why? Go outside.
- 9:21Anyway, we grew up in different times, Alex. But the next question, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was on a podcast and apparently emphasized the need for a new God to worship during the age of AI. Tell us more about that.
- 9:40Well, you know, I pray for Bill Gates to become a Christian. I mean, you know, call me naive, but I think about Bezos and Zuckerberg and Elon and Bill Gates.
- 9:53I mean, could you imagine if they really begin to give their life to Jesus and their immeasurable wealth to the great commission? I mean, it would be like more than the Apostle Paul's conversion.
- 10:05But Bill Gates, you know, I got to say I do pray for Bill Gates, but he kind of gives me the ebgb because, you know, a couple of weeks ago, he said, we could put a chip in the head of every human. Why are we doing this?
- 10:19As if that would be a good thing. All right. When he says that we need a new God for a new age, here are some of the problems. There is, I believe, the assumption that the current faith Christianity was just invented by primitive men or something like that.
- 10:40You know, I remember I debated Christopher Hitchens years ago, the atheists who actually became a friend and Hitchens to my knowledge, he never did believe in Christ sadly, but he did become very pro-life and proudly American.
- 10:56Christopher Hitchens, the atheist in his book on Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, author of America in the first chapter, even the atheist Christopher Hitchens said that America was founded on Christian principles.
- 11:09But Hitchens, whenever we would debate or be on the radio, he would refer to the Old Testament as something written by Braun era peasant.
- 11:19And I'm sure Bill Gates probably has that dismissive assumption that the Bible was invented by man and God was dreamed up by man.
- 11:30And therefore, he would assume that on an as needed basis, we could create a new God. But that's not true though, because the God of the Bible is the eternal, uncreated, self-existent triune deity.
- 11:47And the fact is that the revelation of God, in scripture, and the law of God, the moral compass written on all hearts, revealed in the Ten Commandments decks to this 21 through 17.
- 12:01And that self-evident truth that Jefferson said our declaration and constitution is based on, those are not the contrivances of man.
- 12:14It's the revelation of God. So it's not that man needs a new God, Bill Gates needs to open his art to the true God, which is Jesus Christ.
- 12:25Well, it's interesting that you said he's looking in this new age, right? There's nothing new under the sun, but there's a new age now.
- 12:33Do you remember Alex? I may be dating myself, but there was a song, I think, was it in the late 60s, early 70s, the age of Aquarius? Do you remember that? Very interesting.
- 12:43I do remember that. It was by the fifth dimension. And you know, the lead singer is Marilyn McCue, and Billy Davis Jr., they became devout Christians.
- 12:53They, for years and years, attended Urban Luther's Church in Chicago, Moody Church, and it was my joy to interview them a couple of times.
- 13:02And I talked about that, the age of Aquarius, that, you know, what's interesting, I mean, if you look at America of 1960, and you look at America of 1970, I would warrant there's never been a time in American history where in just a decade,
- 13:22there was such a radical paradigm shift. I mean, when the 60s began, Ricky and Lucy were sleeping in separate beds, and you couldn't even say they were pregnant on TV.
- 13:33Wow. And then Kennedy was shot. And of course, when 1970 began, it was the Woodstock generation. The family was under attack.
- 13:42And Ten Commandments couldn't be posted in public schools. Prayer was banned. And the hippie culture, far from ushering in a man-made utopia, an age of Aquarius, we've really had five and a half decades of a crumbling culture and lost people.
- 14:04And what we need to usher back in is an age of truth and really believe in the God of our founders who happens also to be the God of the Bible.
- 14:17Well, praise God, brother, that's what we are trying to do. I know you've been working at this as an apologist and author and speaker for many, many years. And the people we rub elbows with, the people I get to talk to on this program, we're trying to get the truth out there, trying to wake up the church in part as well. It's part of the job too. But when we come back, oh, thanks. God bless you, Alex.
- 14:40When we come back, after our break, there's a great article on Alex's website and it's called, why does the world hate the Jews? And here's how it starts off and we'll come right back and talk about it. Why does the world hate the Jews? Hint, they don't. They hate the God of the Jews for loving the Jews.
- 15:01But they can't get to him so they attack the people he loves. More with Alex McFarland on World View Matters in just a minute.
- 15:31Get free activation now with promo code David.
- 16:01And on Facebook, of course, you can get the podcast during the week on Freedom Project Facebook. And Alex McFarland is our guest and the website Alex McFarland dot com. Great article from last November.
- 16:31We saw what has been, I guess, cultivated the evil, the darkness and anti-Semitic ideologies that have been cultivated in education, college campuses. Before we jump to your article, can you speak to that?
- 16:49It's very unfortunate that anti-Semitism is allowed to be in the classroom, sorry for that noise.
- 16:59It's okay.
- 17:01In the classroom, in the media, by pundits on the view and elsewhere, it's very unfortunate that in this age of tolerance, diversity in the right of indigenous peoples and all the issues that really multiculturalism has championed.
- 17:24It's so ironic and very hypocritical that the one ethnicity that is allowed to be persecuted, marginalized, mocked.
- 17:35The one racism that's allowed is anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jews. And let me just say this, in 1879, the term anti-Semitism was coined by a German to really soften what it really is.
- 17:54And let's be straight with our terminology. Anti-Semitism is Jew hatred. It's a very sad thing. Those on the left that pride themselves on tolerance and inclusivity, I mean, they should be able to look at people eye to eye or looking at camera on record, unequivocally say, I stand with Israel. I stand for the rights of Jewish people.
- 18:18I stand for the nation of Israel's right to exist. And we will tolerate no racism. And that includes, we will not tolerate racism against the precious Jewish people.
- 18:31So, Alex, in your article, one of the things you say is no other race equals their accomplishments, despite Jews being fewer than 1% of the world's population.
- 18:45Do you think that's one of the reasons, one of the many? Obviously, we know this is rooted in, it's a spiritual at its roots, right? We know it's demonic at its core, the hatred of the Jews and Israel and the Bible.
- 18:56But do you think this is one of the reasons where only 1% of the world's population, but yet, I mean, they are, they lead the world in, I think, produce or exporting or technology and all these different tourism, all these different areas.
- 19:11And I think a lot of people just despise them for that. Your thoughts?
- 19:15Yeah, I really think there is a lot of jealousy. I really do. You know, like I wrote in the article, I've said it, American universities speaking, I've been shouted down.
- 19:27But I said, look, you know, here's 1% of the world's population. And there's this disproportionately large list of accomplishments in medicine and technology, you know, life saving medicine, technological accomplishment.
- 19:44Think about this. I really think it's fascinating. Everybody that's online got introduced to the internet 25 plus years ago by software that was written in Jerusalem.
- 19:59You know, Jerusalem has the world's smallest subway system, 1.2 miles. Just think 77 years ago Hebrew was essentially a dead language. Now it's one of the world's power languages. And Israel has far and away the best military intel in the world.
- 20:16Cheetos are made in Israel. If you like cheetos. And let me just say this while we're talking about cultural achievement, guess who discovered Elvis and the Beatles, Jewish people.
- 20:31Jewish lady named Mary and Kysker got Elvis signed to son records. She presented Elvis to her boss, Sam Phillips, some of you rock and roll.
- 20:43Brian Epstein discovered the Beatles pick any field education, the arts, technology, medicine, I mean, the Jewish people have blessed the world. But God told Abraham in the book of Genesis, in like Genesis 12, 15 and 17 that God says, Abraham, I'm going to make of you a great nation.
- 21:08And through you, Abraham, all the people of the world will be blessed. And now we Christians, we take that to mean that through Israel came Jesus the Messiah. And I believe that and I acknowledge that.
- 21:23But indeed, all the people walking the earth in one way or another have been touched and blessed and their life experience betterment because of the legacy of the Jewish people.
- 21:39Amen, brother. Amen.
- 21:42And they're also, let's talk about the spiritual dynamic briefly here. It's almost an irrational hatred, you know, they hate the Jews. They can't really, especially on college campuses, they don't, they can't explain why and tolerance forget tolerance, right? That's, that's not, it's one way tolerance is what we see, but they can't explain why they just hate to choose the hate Israel.
- 22:04So there's this spiritual dynamic undergirding this. And can you speak to that for a moment?
- 22:10Yeah, you know, even Mark Twain, the great author, Mark Twain, who was not an especially spiritual person, but Mark Twain often, and think about this, this was in the late 19th century, well before the rebirth of the nation of Israel in May of 1948.
- 22:27But Mark Twain said, if there's anything that makes me believe in God and the supernatural, it's the Jewish people.
- 22:37And I think about not only the preservation of the Jewish people, March of AD 70, the dispersion, you know, there's Rome, Blitzkrieg, Jerusalem, and Israel was destroyed in 70 AD.
- 22:57And Jewish people were dispersed throughout the world, really, which ultimately was a blessing to the world.
- 23:04But I got to tell you an inordinate amount of persecution, inexplicable, like you say, just this irrational, inexplicable animus, this hostility against the Jewish people.
- 23:21I've seen it speaking at over 100 American university campuses, but let me just say this, the preservation of the Jewish people, the moral code, Exodus 21 through 17, the 10 Commandments that became really the moral DNA of everything from British common law, the Magna Carta, Scottish common sense realism, the Mecklenburg declaration, the Fairfax resolve.
- 23:50The U.S. declaration constitution preamble Bill of Rights. I mean, really everybody that's walking around with liberty, human rights, women's rights, the acknowledgement of the personhood of all people that by being a human being, you have inherent worth and value and dignity.
- 24:14We can thank the Jewish people for having been the recipient of God's revelation. The Bible says unto the Jews belong the oracles of God. And my point is, I'll throw it back to you, David, that all of this, the indisputable reality of Israel and the Jewish people, what it says is that God is real and the Bible is true.
- 24:42All right, friends, we did lose audio with Alex McFarlane. He's at the airport, but we're so glad that he was able to squeeze this in. There was some miscommunication about the interview, the podcast. So we're just so thankful that he was gracious enough to try to jump on board with us, even though he was at the airport. But I want to just read the last paragraph in his article.
- 25:03What's the cure for anti-Semitism? Can anything stop the world from hating the Jews? It is spiritual, right? But he says get to know the God who loves the Jews and restored Israel to her land as prophesied in Isaiah 66.
- 25:21Will the Jews or Israel ever disappear? No. God promised the Jews would only cease to exist if the sun, moon, stars, and the seasons ceased to exist. That's Jeremiah 31 verses 35 through 37.
- 25:42So learn to love what and whom God loves. And over the article that Dean Dwyer, our friend, our pastor from Australia wrote over at Harbinger's Daily, he wraps up by saying above all, we have to remember that at the heart of anti-Semitism is a spiritual battle rooted in resistance against God and his promises. And anyway, we've got to wrap up.
- 26:09But it was so great that we were at least able to connect with Alex just for most of the podcast. So that's God working that out. So just a blessing to catch up with these men of God that are traveling around standing up for righteousness and biblical truth and worldview issues.
- 26:26And I'm just so thankful. So hope you enjoyed what you did here from Alex. Keep in touch friends. Keep sharing the podcast. Let us know your thoughts. God bless you. And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.